Innovation and Future Technologies

What is the next big thing in UX and technology? EX: Designing and researching the Internet of Things, how to leverage all of this collected data, holograms, body modifications, and interactions with robotic technology.

More organizations are embracing qualitative methods like ethnographic studies and video diaries. As design researchers we can see the value of early contextual research, but how does that translate into actionable insights? In this collaboration, we convene an expert group of UX practitioners engaged in contextual research to talk about what we do and how we do it. We will share and learn from each other and collect success stories, challenges, and failures to share with the broader UXPA community.

The rise of small screen devices, especially wearables, calls into question the best way to maximize limited screen space. Previous studies have examined various text presentation methods in order to understand the best way to read on small screens. This presentation describes a study comparing rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP) with traditional, line-by-line reading on a smart watch. RSVP presents text sequentially one word at a time in order to take advantage of limited screen space.

Siri, Cortana, Alexa - voice recognition is going mainstream. What does this technology mean for your business? How does speech fit with the internet of things, with virtual agents, or in the enterprise space? Crispin Reedy, a voice interaction designer with over 10 years of experience, and the president of the Association for Voice Interaction Design, will review the current state of speech recognition and natural language technologies, discuss how they fit in the emerging landscape of distributed devices, and discuss techniques and methods to evaluate these interfaces.

If you ask people what they think about Virtual Reality – they think to what it was in the 80’s and 90’s – and you get interesting reactions: laughter, head shakes; few people take it seriously. Now is the time to set aside those memories and preconceived ideas about what could have been. The technology to create immersive reality experiences as well as smart phone adoption rates has finally enabled Virtual Reality to become – reality.